Quotes About Corruption

Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats. (1994) p. 99

with lawyers I always assume that they came by their wealth and position through avarice and by means nefarious:

Socrates learned to his cost, the true nature of democracy is to encourage corruption and excess in all its forms. But the

The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.

Well, who knew? When they were elected. That they were crooks, I mean." "Pretty much everyone who didn't vote for them, Friedrich. And I suspect quite a few of the stupid fools who did. Which only makes it worse.

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.

You know, sometimes a thing, a system, a creation grows so old, and corrupt, and weighed down by its own baggage, that all you can do is change it. Move on. Start afresh. It's frightening, but it has to be done.

Who touches money touches dirt; and the less religion has to do with it, the better.

And then they would watch her closely as the dark, coagulated masses took form before her eyes, became flesh and bone, became gradually human. For all their show of reluctance, she had a sense that they enjoyed introducing her to these horrors, as seducers took pleasure in the corruption of innocence.

The first gold star a child gets in school for the mere performance of a needful task is its first lesson in graft.

L'idiotie est une maladie qui va bien avec la peur. L'une et l,autre s'engraissent mutuellement, créant une gangrène qui ne demande qu'à se propager.

It is shocking, but true, that in today's America, "Justice" is a purchasable commodity.

The well-connected lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly had been counseling him since the previous summer—for a $600,000-a-year contract. "He was meticulously coached on everything from how to answer his critics to how to compliment his patrons," the Washington Post reported.117

Since the days of George III, Americans have resisted authority; Canadians, by and large, have not. And it seems to me that if Canadians from time to time have endured too much authority, you Americans have suffered from too little. If government becomes too strong, it becomes arbitrary; if it becomes too weak it can also become corrupt

Rude contact with facts chased my visions and dreams quickly away, and in their stead I beheld the horrors, the corruption, the evils and hypocrisy of society, and as I stood among them, a young wife, a great wail of agony went out from my soul.

It seems proper, at all events, that by an early enactment similar to that of other countries the application of public money by an officer of Government to private uses should be made a felony and visited with severe and ignominious punishment.

If Mohammed bin Salman wants to deal properly with corruption, he must preserve two elements vital to the Saudi economy: trust in the state and the role of national companies.

What you and I understand as a government doesn't exist in many African countries. In fact, what we call our governments are vampire states. Vampires because they suck the economic vitality out of their people. Government is the problem in Africa.

Along with Trump, there are few people, on either the right or the left, who would defend the system. The system is, everyone believes, broken: it's an insider's game; it's totally fixed; it serves itself. Trump codified this into a simple and vivid idea: the swamp.

My books may highlight corruption, brutality and venality, but they also show that if these things come to light, there is rectification. The voiceless do have a voice; democratic mechanisms and accountability do exist.

Over the past few years special interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.

Billionaires like the Koch brothers, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and political puppet master Karl Rove should not be able to buy our elections. Secret money should not be able to drown out the voices of the American people and sell our Democracy to the highest bidder.

Ultimately, much of the dysfunction in Congress is due to the impact of big money, which drowns out the voices of working families and leads to the special treatment of special interests.